Starting Compulsory English Early in Pakistan: A Study of Newly Emerged Scenario in the Light of TEYL Principles

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse complex and important issues surrounding the new scenario that has emerged after compulsory English has been introduced from class-1 in Pakistan. This paper attempts to explore these vital issues in the light of TEYL principles. A literature review of the problem is presented enumerating the TEYL principles to provide a proper theoretical framework to administer research tools for collection of relevant data. Both qualitative and quantitative research tools have been administered viz., interviews, observations, and survey on the target population. In order to highlight the advantages of starting English early in Pakistan and get the optimum benefits from this change, this paper provides some suggestions and recommendations. We must train and prepare the teachers and the schools so that they may cope with the new scenario, in a professional and planned way. This paper mainly focuses on highlighting the problems emerging in the new scenario to the forefront. Limited scope does not allow the researcher to provide practical solutions to the problem at length. It does, however, open areas of research for the future researches and researchers. This paper tends to engage the teachers, administrators, policy makers to focus on the complexities of TEYL to make the change in the policy a real success. The culture of the classrooms, teaching and learning could be transformed towards betterment by funding the researchers to focus on this issue. The hiring, training and evaluation of school instructors could also be impacted in this way. The paper begins with an overview of previous researches bringing out the TEYL principles on the forefront focusing on the definitions, explanations and argumentation on this theme. It then focuses on the target population viz., the teachers and students to find out the ground realities, opinions, perceptions, apprehensions and suggestions, and then moves on to give recommendations.